Reviews

If you think a violent action flick needs a critical analysis of the plot, script, storyline... then you're in the wrong genre. The only things that count are the believability that the bad guys deserve a really bad asskicking and that the good guys do an entertaining job of givin' it to'em. These movies are supposed to be reasonably short. Dialogue is supposed to be too contrived, too clever and above all, too corny.

Fight choreography is where an action joint makes or breaks and this flick has some very good stuff. Max Zhang is cool, clever and deadly. Bautista and De Groot are cool going at each other in a too-short battle of bruisers.

I liked this and if you know what to expect going in, you'll have fun. :)

Netflix is known for producing very good drama series. See Bloodline, for example. The Crown. The Lincoln Lawyer. Folks, "Who is Erin Carter?" ain't one of those.

The characters are inauthentic. The writers must have prepared all of the scripts the Monday after a weekend-long bender. The acting is so bad it's like the characters are reading the words from a Teleprompter. The action and fight scenes lack even minimal choreography. The whole show just plods along, from one bad scene to the next.

I made it through the 3rd episode and decided that this series probably won't be worth the pain of effort it would take to see it through. But I bravely (or foolishly) finished it anyway. I'm taking one for the team here people, and I am telling you straight up that you need not suffer as I have.

The only redeeming qualities of this show are the acting and cinematography. Greenwood, McDonnell, Gugino and Hamill turn in very good performances. The cinematography is also topnotch and would be great on big sceens and IMAX.

The rest of it is pure Hollywood contempt for half or more of the potential audience. At least half of those who watch it through to the colloquy between Greenwood's Roderick and McDonnell's Madeline will have forced themselves to do so, if just to see if there's anything that makes getting to that scene worthwhile. They'll only be disappointed but hey, Greenwood and McDonnell acted it well. All of the rest of it is vintage 1980's jump startling hack and slash with all of the creativity of Jason Part 7683.

The screenplay is what you'd expect if Michael Moore invited Stephen King and Bernie Sanders over for cocktails, party favors, a reading of an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe and an outline of a miniseries to be released just before Halloween 2023. The most terrifying thing here is that those three actually saw the project through. If Siskell had had three thumbs they'd all be down and angry.

It wasn't exchange rates or rising production costs that ended Atlantis. It was the declining entertainment value. When you produce great material, you get great ratings, reviews and honors and the show is always profitable. When you start to think that your art can be used to drag public thinking to your point of view, your Saturday Night Live stops being funny, your MTV stops being must see TV and a once great Sci Fi jumps the shark. Sadly, it has been almost 15 years after this episode aired and the lesson still hasn't sunk in. Get back to entertaining us with stuff we'd never expect to encounter in the real world. And we'll keep watching. Keep dragging the real world into our entertainment and we'll stop.

Worth the ticket price, but still not up to Indiana Jones standards. Granted, this is a very high bar but this film doesn't seem to make much of an attempt to reach it.

I frankly believe that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was the wrong actress for this part. Ms. Waller-Bridge simply cannot abandon the sarcastic, quirky characters she has played since forever. She's not dreadful here, but neither does she click like Karen Allen in Raiders or Kate Capshaw in Temple. I also believe that the development of the relationship between Helena and Indy is better suited as part of a post-Indy straight-to-streaming drama flick. It's just out of place here.

Mads Mikkelsen is outstanding as a bad guy. The fact that his performance exceeds that of the leading man and leading lady is telling.

I cannot be the only film lover who has noticed that the Disney Co. Has done little to improve the quality of Lucas content. It feels like the franchises born in the 1970's and 80's are now just being milked for revenues while the corporate office insures that it scores political popularity points. The quality of the art suffers when the art is no longer created for the art's sake.

I do still think the movie is worth the ticket price but it really could have been so much better.

The action scenes in this show are credible but this is no Jason Bourne thriller. The characters become unbelievable in the second episode and go downhill from there. The Night Action storyline could have worked if anyone on the production team had ever worked with or around sensitive compartmented information (SCI) procedures. Or sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIF). This show is the result of someone's imagination of how such things might work.

Direction is lazy and the acting shows it. Both protagonists and antagonists are working too hard to show their credentials. The only redeeming quality of this show is the action choreography. It's not bad at all, and would thoroughly entertain my 15-year old nephew if he could make it past the dreadful dialogue. Adults used to Bourne, Reacher and Ryan probably drop it after the 2nd episode.

Ok, this is a new twist to an Ocean's X plot. But with fresh new faces, fantastic acting and great directing. Jumbling the episodes without giving away certain "Ah Ha!" moments discovered in others shows a lot of creativity, something in rare form these days. Hollywood turns out. When you see the "Red" episode doesn't matter, but it does contain many of the answers you'll be asking through the others. Some characters die in this show. Some you may have forgotten prove very important. Watch the episodes in whichever order you wish. You still won't get the whole story until you watch the last one you'll watch.

I loved the writing, the acting, the cinematography, the soundtrack... everything about Bosch but most importantly the fact that I got all of this FREE OF COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTION. I paid for commercial free TV. Get back to me when I can explore Legacy with breaks I choose.

Longmire is supposed to be a crime drama. It fails miserably as an evening soap opera. If I wanted to watch an episode that felt like a soap, there are far better offerings to choose from. If I wanted to watch a crime drama episode (and I did)... well, there were many better to choose from. This is what happens when you try to be something other than what you are. No matter how hard you try you fail at both.

The nice thing about Matrix: Revolutions is that it doesn't bother to check any cultural boxes that seem to be all the rage in Hollow Wood right now. If you're looking for social warrior ammo, you're in the wrong seat with an empty clip.

I started watching reluctantly. I expected to be disappointed and I kinda went along with my expectations for a few scenes before the film did a Morpheus on me and WOW... were my expectations stupid. This is a Wachovski, after all! What a fine piece of filmmaking to tweak the 2020's culture. The Merovingian's rant about today's culture really sums up the garbage that blue pill lovers gobble up today, doesn't it? I had to pause and rewind that a few times to catch it all. The red pill warriors are the ones dragging the mask off the face of society and saying, "we are a free people and we can do this--TOGETHER!" And the Wachovski sisters remind us for the 4th time that The Matrix franchise has always been a high energy, high action, high tech love story. No matter the setting or the time period. Hook up a good man and good woman, light the fuse of love and there are no limits to either what they'll do for each other or wrongs they can right

This was a fantastic film and I want more, please.

I've seen B rate action flicks at drive-in theaters in the 1970's with better entertainment value than this expensive monstrosity. The screenplay was bad. The direction was awful. The acting was contrived and witless.

I thought the first two seasons of this series were not bad. Season 3 is, and after this episode I'm looking for something else to watch.

It is clear that the screenwriters have zero clues how law enforcement acts or how they would never do stuff like barging into an evacuating hospital locked, loaded and shouting orders.

Script sucks. Acting sucks.

Steven Seagal is solely responsible for this. Only Steven Seagal could come up with something this terrible. Only Steven Seagal could write, produce, direct and star in something this horrible. Plots are unintelligible. Dialogue is down there with the worst of Bollywood. The acting however, does hold up to my fifth grader's Christmas play. There is absolutely no redeeming quality to this no good, very bad collection of garbage. Not even Steven Seagal's hair transplant can save it.

I was thirty minutes into this before I realized that, based the reviews, this is supposed to be a horrible, awful and not very good movie (but mostly horrible).

It was none of that. It's what you'd expect from a low budget, straight to disc action film. Maybe my enjoyment level was increased by my low expectations. Or maybe it was the well choreographed fight scenes (there are plenty). Maybe it was the reasonably believable plot.

Maybe all of the above?

I liked it, but then I watched it late in the evening and was hungry for an OK and entertaining flick for dessert. I didn't expect too much, but I was still entertained and satisfied, even surprised.

Not even the landscape and cinematography could save this one. It was a slow plod through an unlikely story line. The writing team should (figuratively) be taken out and shot.

For heaven's sake, a full seven minutes passed before the first lines were uttered. I knew I was in trouble right there.

I had to fast forward throughout just get past the boring parts. And those are too many to count. Add that to the lack of historical accuracy. The Norse were skilled seamen and navigators. Suggesting that a crew of them could get lost while sailing south and somehow end up sailing west is historical nonsense.

I simply could not find one redeeming quality in Valhalla Rising. Even the title is misleading.

Don't waste the time, money or bandwidth on it.

I don't understand the negative reviews. This is a very good low budget crime drama with a plot that grabs you and doesn't let go until the violent, bitter end.

Ben Barnes really plays the dark and conflicted Nick Tortano well, a character that you really want to root for, but just can't because of this thing they have in the mob. Harvey Keitel is perfectly cast as a mob boss and plays the role as brilliantly as you would expect.

I thought the script could have been a little tighter and frankly that's the only thing that keeps this very good film from being a great one.

The acting was also very good from top to bottom, and the action scenes were well directed and very well executed.

If you don't mind low budget flicks with nonetheless good character development and good performances, you will like By the Gun. It's good enough to watch twice. Or more. Ignore the negative reviews and get this one!

This is a fun movie to watch, but it faithlessly follows Crichton's book of the same title. If you've already read the book, prepare to see too much left out and too much changed.

But then if you've read Tolkien's The Hobbit and then watched in horror as Peter Jackson et al stretched a fairly short story into three full length feature films, adding stuff, changing stuff and deleting stuff, you'll know what I mean.

Is faithfully following a book a prerequisite to making a good film? I say no. That's true even if the book is a classic piece of sci-fi literature (and Timeline is). Most theater-goers, movie renters and casual discount bin shoppers won't have read the book.

But once you do see the film, then go read the book. Do it vice versa, and you'll be as disappointed as a Tolkien fan watching Jackson's butchery.

R.I.P.D. is just fun cinema. If you don't have fun watching this one, it's your own fault.

Jeff Bridges turns in his most entertaining performance since the Gig Lebowski, Ryan Reynolds shows why he is perfect as a comedic superhero and Kevin Bacon plays the role as the villain almost flawlessly.

This has all the qualities you loved in Ghostbusters and Men in Black.

Supernatural? Check. Great special effects? Check. A great script that's well performed by the cast? Check.

It's hard to have more fun watching a movie than this. Watch, and enjoy. It's over before you know it.

Luke Goss turns in his typically gritty, tough-guy performance. Why this guy is mired in B-rate,straight to video films escapes me. He is, essentially, a bald Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen.

Nestor Carbonell also performs quite well in this, and Caroline Castro is exquisite.

With most action-drama films, this movie takes a while to get there. But once it does, boy... it really goes there.

I don't understand all of the negative ratings. As I write this, it has a 3.9 rating in IMDb. It is much better than that. I give this film a 7/10 only because as a low budget flick, there are some plot holes. But those don't distract from this compelling, if unbelievable story line (and let's be honest--how many flicks in this genre feature the possible rather than the improbable?).

If you're expecting Academy Award stuff, skip this. If you're down for a gritty, thrilling revenge story that's well-acted, settle in and enjoy.

I picked this up from the bargain bin at a local discount store. I wasn't expecting much, but boy... was I pleasantly surprised.

Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones and Randy Couture all play important, but primarily supporting roles. It's the duo of Gianni Capaldi and Daniel Bonjour in their roles as up-and-coming drug traffickers who are the major focus of the plot, and the two do a more than respectable job.

They are not good guys, although Frank (played by Bonjour) seems to want to become one one day.

Much of the film is narrated by Bonjour, in a fashion similar to what Ray Liotta did in Goodfellas. You really didn't like the character of Henry Hill, and you probably won't like Frank very much, either. But in both films, the narration tends to help the audience understand why these guys are doing really bad things.

There is quite a bit of violence, foul language and nudity in Ambuhsed (aka Hard Rush). Which is pretty much what you'd be looking for in a modern action flick.

The acting is decent, the script is good, the plot is good, the score is great. The pace slows down in a few places, but they don't break anything. Don't pass this one up the next time you're rummaging through the bargain bin.

Don't expect a high budget, star-studded cast. This film is not that. It's a low budget, direct to disc release. As long as you're OK with that, and you are an action flick film as I am, this is entertaining enough to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon watching.

The acting--outside of Lundgren--is not great. He's always good but the rest of the speaking cast come off as awkward at times, decent at times. Never quite awful, but never quite great. It's a B-movie. What do you expect? Golden Globe awards?

The movie is reasonably fast paced. The action scenes are as fun as they are gory. But again, it's a Zombie Apocalypse plot so that's what you expect to see. It delivers on that regard.

I saw one site billing this film as a sequel to Robotropolis, a movie so bad that I simply couldn't finish it. This, if it is a sequel, bears almost no resemblance to the poor effort displayed in Robotropolis.

Overall, if you are a fan of Dolph, you like action and you like Zombie movies, this is enjoyable. Just don't expect too much.

Have you ever started reading a book, only to find that you simply can't put it down?

As a film, The Crown and the Dragon is no such animal. I started and stopped this thing over a three day period.

It's not a bad movie. But it's not a great one, either. The acting is decent. The scenery is lovely and this is reasonably well directed. This is a fantasy film and the genre is populated with both very good and very bad efforts. This one leans good but it won't win any awards.

This is the kind of project where the producers and director know that they're on a tight budget, they have to take a few shortcuts, and still get a working product out within those constraints. I give them credit.

But again, this is not the kind of film that is over before you know it. At times the pace drags and tempts you to take a break (I obliged). At other times it's compelling enough to make you want to see what's gonna happen next. If you're a fantasy fan, you're more likely than not to enjoy it.

I gave a 6 out of 10. Worth a box rental or a view on your Amazon or Netflix account. But must see? Meh...

Short version: These "princesses" are not to be trifled with.

Longer version: These five ladies kick butt, they look good doing it, and this film entertains anyone willing to suspend disbelief and accept that unbelievable stuff happens in an action/fantasy/sci-fi flick.

This movie does get a little boring in the first 20-25 minutes or so, but once the action starts it simply does not stop. The four princesses plus Red Riding Hood (yes, really) just... well... take it to the house.

You could compare this to Van Helsing, in which the female lead shows how tough a woman can be in difficult situations. Multiply that by four (five if you count Riding Hood), throw in a truly evil antagonist and his minions, and you have about 90 minutes of mindless entertainment.

To be honest, I would love to see a sequel, or even to see this folded into the current Avengers franchise. These ladies did a great job of keeping me engaged and I frankly think they'll do the same with you.

Fun stuff.

I have to admit--I haven't seen Dolph Lundgren in such an evil bad guy role since Rocky IV. But even though Lundgren is showing some age, he also shows why he has become a diverse actor with still impressive physical skills.

Cung Le turns in an admirable performance as our antagonist, and the guy has incredible moves. Still, you have a hard time finding a true "good guy" here.

This is a great action flick, suitable for a weekend "boys night in" complete with beer and pizza.

I honestly didn't expect much, and that often results in me being honestly surprised. If you approach action flicks without the expectations of Academy Award winning performances, and you also understand that you're sitting down to a low budget flick, you usually get what you came for.

The metal score is fun. The violence is plentiful and gratuitous. The special effects are well done and the fight scenes are epic. It's a fun movie to watch.